Six Frames From Forever, Super Mario Bros. Speedrunners Are Just 0.1 Seconds from Perfection

Brazilian speedrunner LeKukie finished Super Mario Bros. in 4 minutes, 54 seconds, and 365 milliseconds on June 2. That time sits exactly one tenth of a second, or six frames, short of the best possible human run under the rules speedrunners follow. Former record holder Kosmic laid out the details in a recent video, and the community now treats the perfect completion as an approaching fact rather than a distant dream.

LeKukie reached this point after years of dealing with mismatched hardware and several extremely frustrating sessions. It all began in 2019, when he was attempting to learn the game on a cumbersome old PS2 system using an emulated version. Community members must have heard about it and sent him some good hardware, including a proper NES and a nicer controller, which should have made things much easier.Brazilian hardware quirks and worn-out controllers continued to present issues, but he persevered and pushed through. Then, in May, he had a perfect run from the center of the game to the final castle before losing his footing on the lava. Only a few days later, he leveraged his consistency to set a new world record.

According to real-time rules, you should be able to knock off 4:54.265. This figure was determined by closely examining tool-assisted runs that remain within the bounds of what a human can actually enter on a controller. One important criterion is that no two buttons, much alone left and right, can be pressed simultaneously. The majority of the prior world records on LeKukie’s record are already accurate. The final bit of time inside 8-4 is still causing him problems. That 6 frame difference is divided into five sections: one at the beginning, one in the second room, where a press of the left button occurs a frame too early, two in the third room, where a couple of special moves and a perfect turnaround can still be fine-tuned, and the final two in the last room after the pipe exit. It appears the water sections in that level are pretty much spot on.

The moves necessary are often extreme because Mario accelerates quicker when moving left and right throughout the air than when facing the direction he’s running in. To make the most of this, turn around on the exact frame before exiting a ledge or pipe, so you’re always facing the direction of the quicker speed. These “falling fast” accelerations require left and right input on successive frames, which should make it a bit difficult. LeKukie devised an unusual way to hold his controller, allowing him to flick the d-pad with a seesaw motion of his fingers. It appears that this unorthodox grip is the primary reason keyboard players used to have the upper hand when it comes to the fastest directional switches.

Top runners can now easily run hundreds of flawless versions of 8-4 in practice, sometimes even executing a back to back combo, and LeKukie has also linked a perfect 4-2 to a perfect 8-4. Niftski, another well-known player, recently achieved the optimal pace all the way to the last level in a full-game try. This has now put both LeKukie and Niftski in a mindset in which every time you reach the castle, it’s a real shot at the extreme maximum.
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